Written by: Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney
Recorded: 28 March; April 1973
Producer: Richard Perry
Released: 2 November 1973 (US), 23 November 1973 (UK)
Available on:
Ringo
Personnel
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums
Paul McCartney: vocals, piano, synthesizer
Klaus Voormann: bass guitar
Vini Poncia: acoustic guitar, percussion
Linda McCartney: vocals
‘Six O’Clock’ is the eighth song on Ringo Starr’s 1973 album Ringo.
It was written by Paul and Linda McCartney, who also performed on the recording. Both contributed vocals, while Paul also added piano and synthesizer. It was the first time Starr and McCartney had collaborated since The Beatles’ split.
Paul wrote that. See, they knew me so well, they would write songs that they felt I could get away with. A lot of the songs they wrote for me, they would not have thought of doing themselves.
Billboard, 26 May 2001
Richard Perry, the producer of Ringo, was invited by McCartney to work on the audio for James Paul McCartney, a 1973 television special showcasing Wings. During an overdub session, Perry asked if McCartney would contribute to ‘I’m The Greatest’. McCartney declined, due to the often tense relations between him and the song’s composer John Lennon, but he did show willingness to contribute a new song.
McCartney had no spare songs that would suit Starr’s vocal range, but said he would write something to order if he had a deadline. “So I said Wednesday,” Perry told the LA Times in 1974, “and he came up with his tune ‘Six O’Clock’.”
Quite coincidentally, Paul called and asked me to come to London to help supervise the musical tracks of his first TV special, because everything had to be re-recorded, and he wanted someone in the booth to help out the engineer, because TV engineers aren’t that experienced in rock recordings. And that was when we were going to London to continue work on Ringo’s album, so it all came together very conveniently.
The Record Producers, John Tobler and Stuart Grundy
During a press conference at the New Theatre in Oxford on 12 May 1973, McCartney was asked why he wrote the song for Starr. “I would do it for any friend. I would do it for Rod Stewart if he rang up…”
In the studio
The backing track for ‘Six O’Clock’ was recorded at Apple Studios in London on 28 March 1973. Fifteen takes were recorded, with the session ending at 6am.
Paul McCartney also added a kazoo-like vocal solo to ‘You’re Sixteen’.
Paul was good enough to write a song for Ringo, and we had two or three wonderful nights of recording when he and Linda came down. We cut the track to that song, which was ‘Six O’Clock’, and in fact, the solo on ‘You’re Sixteen’, which sounds like a kazoo or something, was Paul singing very spontaneously as we played that track back, so he’s singing the solo on that.
The Record Producers, John Tobler and Stuart Grundy
‘Six O’Clock’ was completed during further overdub sessions at Abbey Road in April 1973.
The song originally included a coda which extended its length from 4:05 to 5:26, although it was cut prior to the album’s release. However, the LP label on the US release included the longer running time. The full version of ‘Six O’Clock’ did appear on some promotional copies as well as cassette and 8-track cartridge editions, and was given a wider release on the 1992 compact disc reissue of Goodnight Vienna.
